Phil Fish

Early life and career

Phil Fish was born Philippe Poisson in Montreal in 1984. He was raised in Quebec, where his parents shared their interest in art and gaming with him. Fish's father translated The Legend of Zelda into French so the two could play together. Fish credits these memories as formative, and later cited their influence on Fez. He graduated from the 2004 Design and Digital Art for Video Games program at the Montreal NAD (National Animation and Design Centre).

Fish began his career at the video game publisher Ubisoft, where he worked on Open Season as a level designer. He was initially excited for the job but grew disenchanted with their large development teams and working conditions. Fish later described it as "the worst experience of [his] life". He was later fired from the company.

On May 24, 2006, Fish won the Artificial Mind and Movement Award for Best Cut-Scene at the annual NAD Center Awards of Excellence Gala. Later that year, Fish began work as a level designer at Artificial Mind and Movement, where he designed for film tie-in games including The Golden Compass.

Fish is a founding member of Kokoromi, a group that designs and promotes experimental video games. His November 2006 Arcadia Festival event, GAMMA 01 Audio Feed, featured games that incorporated live sound. Fish planned a similar event, GAMMA 256, for 2007, and a third event, GAMMA 3D, for November 2008 in Montreal. Fish was invited to present a lecture on GAMMA 01 at the 2007 Game Developers Conference. He also wrote a review of the 1999 Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver in the 2007 book Space Time Play: Synergies Between Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: the Next Level. Additionally, Fish has been characterized by Sean Hollister of The Verge as "notorious for voicing angry, controversial opinions about the state of video games".

Polytron

Fish began to work with Toronto-based indie developer Shawn McGrath on McGrath's idea for a puzzle game that showed 2D views of a 3D space. Fish provided the project's art until the partnership crumbled due to creative differences: Fish wanted their product to be more of a platform game. Fish continued to work on the game in his spare time, and incorporated the idea of voxels (3D pixels), where a 2D pixel could be seen from four sides. The game would become Fez and the game's design, lore, and art derived from this game mechanic. Fish searched for a programmer on DeviantArt and Renaud Bédard, the first person to apply, became the game's programmer. Fez was first announced in July 2007 and was nominated for two awards at the 2008 Game Developers Conference Independent Games Festival. Fish's employer, Artificial Mind and Movement, would not let him take leave from work to attend, so Fish quit. He marked this January 2008 moment as "when I became indie". The game received widespread attention upon its showing at the festival, leading Fish to open Polytron Corporation as a startup company with a government loan.

Polytron later ran out of money and was on the verge of folding when the company's Québécois neighbor, developer-producer Trapdoor, offered to help Polytron without transferring its intellectual property rights. According to Fish, the partnership saved Fez. The game was delayed several times over the next few years for which it received some notoriety.

In late 2009, Polytron presented an iPhone game called Power Pill at Pecha Kucha Montreal. The game features a panacean pill that travels through human bodies as its playable protagonist, and it uses the iPhone's multi-touch screen. GameSetWatch's Eric Caoili compared it to Soul Bubbles and Irritating Stick. The game was developed with Alec Holowka of Infinite Ammo, and a level editor was expected to be included. While working on Fez, Fish revived a game project called SuperHyperCube, which was based on Wiimote motion capture input and stereoscopic navigation. Fish felt the game would work better with the new Kinect motion tracking. The adapted game was a finalist at Indiecade 2011.

Fish and Fez were featured prominently in the 2012 documentary Indie Game: The Movie, through which Fish received celebrity unusual for game developers. The film chronicles the stories of several indie developers at various stages of their games' development cycles, and Fish is shown preparing for Fez's booth at PAX East in March 2011. The film presents Fish amidst a legal dispute with a former business partner that jeopardizes the game's release. The partner, believed to be Jason DeGroot, is portrayed negatively and does not participate onscreen. The film also tracks Fish's personal and emotional investment in the game. Eurogamer wrote that the part where Fish resolves to kill himself if he does not release his game is "the film's most startling moment". Rock, Paper, Shotgun wrote that Fish is portrayed as melodramatic, theatrical, and neurotic, and that the film will exacerbate his outspoken public perception. Game Informer called Fish the film's "most memorable developer". The film's end credits were later revised to reflect that Fish's business partner was not asked for input.

Near the end of development, Fish felt "burnt out" and that his personal health had suffered. Fez was released on April 13, 2012 and sold 200,000 copies in its yearlong exclusivity to the Xbox Live Arcade platform. Video game review aggregator Metacritic described reviews for the 2012 Xbox 360 Fez as "generally favorable" and those for the 2013 PC version as "universal acclaim". While in development, Fez had won the 2012 GDC Independent Games Festival's Seamus McNally Grand Prize, the 2011 Indiecade Best in Show and Best Story/World Design, and the 2008 GDC Independent Games Festival's Excellence in Visual Art. Eurogamer awarded Fez a perfect score and named the "perfect, wordless sci-fi parable" their 2012 Game of the Year. Fish announced eventual ports for "'pretty much' every platform" but the Nintendo 3DS. It sold one million copies by the end of 2013. The New York Times's Chris Suellentrop called Fish "a Quentin Tarantino of 8-bit gaming".

A Fez sequel was announced as "one more thing" at end of the Horizon indie game press conference during the June 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo. A Twitter argument between Fish and GameTrailers journalist Marcus Beer a month later culminated in the project's cancellation and Fish's exit from the industry. In an episode of his show Invisible Walls, Beer had criticized Fish's recent response to questions about Microsoft's Xbox One self-publishing policy change. On Twitter, Fish condemned the industry for its negativity before his final tweet announced the cancellation and his leave. The news came as a surprise to the rest of Polytron, which has not commented on upcoming projects other than ports since the sequel's cancellation. Polygon listed Fish in their top 50 newsmakers of 2013 for the social power of his "caustic use of Twitter".

Polytron Partners

In June 2014, Fish announced Polytron Partners—a new effort by Polytron to fund and support potential indie game efforts, like a publisher. For their first game, Polytron will work with Finji to provide the daily operations capacity for an "interactive musical landscape anthology" game named Panoramical. Fish's personal and company records were released publicly in August 2014 as part of a spate of hacks on video game developers. Fish responded by announcing that the company and Fez property were for sale.

Works